By Gene Barlow
User Group Relations
Copyrighted April 2013
A couple of years ago, I bought a new laptop computer that I just love. It is a small Lenovo ThinkPad X120e computer, about the same size as a tablet, but it has a full keyboard and runs familiar Windows software. This lightweight unit does everything I want it to do in a portable design, and was fairly inexpensive (less than $400) to purchase. As I said, I love this small laptop computer.
The only bad thing is that it is slightly slower than I wanted. At the price I paid, I expected this to be the case. Now, a couple of years later, I wish it were a bit faster. I looked at the newer ThinkPad models that were similar in size to this model. Yes, they are faster, but to buy one would cost me over $900 today. I will live with the slower speed to avoid this major expense at this time.
Benefits of Upgrading to a SSD
As an alternative, I investigated replacing the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) inside the computer with a fast Solid State Drive (SDD). The costs of these new drives with no moving parts had dropped significantly the past year or so. Still, they were more expensive than a similar HDD. To replace my 250GB main hard drive would cost me over $200. At that price, I might as well buy a new ThinkPad instead. However, 120GB SSD were priced under $100, which was reasonable to my thinking.
So, I bought a 120GB Vertex 4 SSD as the replacement drive for my laptop. After doing some research, I decided on this model. This was a 4th generation SSD from Vertex, a reliable brand. It was faster and had a longer life than their older models. Going with the latest SSD made sense to me.
With the new SSD installed and running in my computer, I am very excited at the changes it made. It boots up and runs about 25% faster than my old HDD. It also runs cooler, which is important on laptop computers. Since the SSD is slightly lighter than the HDD it replaced, I have less weight to carry around. Without moving parts, the SDD is more durable than a HDD. The SSD is also quieter than the HDD. Very importantly, I can expect my battery to last longer between charges. To net it all out, I just upgraded my laptop computer for about $100 and ended up with the performance of a similar computer costing $900. That is a great savings in my mind.
How to Upgrade to a SSD
Now, in case I have motivated you to consider upgrading your HDD to a SSD drive in your computer, let me tell you how easy it was to do this, using the right tools. Before starting this process, I decided to upgrade my BIOS to the latest release for my computer. I didn’t want issues with the BIOS and my new SSD hard drive. This was a short process by going to my computer manufacturer’s website and downloading the latest BIOS for my computer model. I carefully followed their instructions to do this and in less than 5 minutes, my computer’s BIOS was up to date.
The next issue I faced was going from a larger (250GB) HDD to a smaller (120GB) SDD. Fortunately, my hard drive was not very full and I had empty space to give up. If the used space on my hard drive was larger than the new SSD drive, I would have had to delete some of the files. That was not the case, so all I was faced with was to reduce the size of the five partitions on my HDD. I used Acronis Disk Director 11 Home to resize each of the partitions on my old HDD. Then I moved each smaller partition towards the beginning of the drive, again using Disk Director. This organized all of my five partitions in the first 120GB of the HDD. The remainder of the HDD was just unallocated space on the drive.
With my old HDD prepared with smaller partitions, I was now ready to copy them to the new SDD. Since most laptops only have room for one hard drive inside the computer, I purchased a special cable to let me attach my new SDD to a USB port on my laptop. This Notebook Drive Upgrade Kit by Apricorn was less than $40 at Best Buy. I attached my new SSD drive to one end of the cable and the other I plugged into a USB port on my laptop. The upgrade kit came with a CD containing software to clone my main drive to the SSD drive, but since I trusted my Acronis True Image 2013 Home backup utility, I used the clone function in True Image to duplicate the contents of my HDD onto the SSD drive. This took about 30 minutes to complete and all went very smoothly.
When the cloning function was completed, I powered off my computer, removed the battery, and then replaced the old HDD inside the laptop with the new SSD I had just finish cloning. When I powered up the computer, it ran without a hitch, only much faster, quieter, and taking less power. This was a very easy enhancement to my ThinkPad and it gave me tremendous improvements to my favorite laptop.
To order Acronis True Image Home 2013 or Acronis Disk Director 11 Home from us, go to www.ugr7.com and select the products you wish to purchase. Once you are on that product’s page, click on the appropriate Buy Now button to place your order. We charge only $25 for a single license or $60 for a three license Family Pack. You can order a download copy or we can mail you a CD with the software on it. (There is a $5 shipping fee per order if you order the CD.) When checking out of the shopping cart, enter in the special order code of UGNL0413.
If you have questions about this article or the True Image or Disk Director products, send an email to support@ugr7.com and I will try to help you with your questions.
User Group Relations
Copyrighted April 2013
A couple of years ago, I bought a new laptop computer that I just love. It is a small Lenovo ThinkPad X120e computer, about the same size as a tablet, but it has a full keyboard and runs familiar Windows software. This lightweight unit does everything I want it to do in a portable design, and was fairly inexpensive (less than $400) to purchase. As I said, I love this small laptop computer.
The only bad thing is that it is slightly slower than I wanted. At the price I paid, I expected this to be the case. Now, a couple of years later, I wish it were a bit faster. I looked at the newer ThinkPad models that were similar in size to this model. Yes, they are faster, but to buy one would cost me over $900 today. I will live with the slower speed to avoid this major expense at this time.
Benefits of Upgrading to a SSD
As an alternative, I investigated replacing the Hard Disk Drive (HDD) inside the computer with a fast Solid State Drive (SDD). The costs of these new drives with no moving parts had dropped significantly the past year or so. Still, they were more expensive than a similar HDD. To replace my 250GB main hard drive would cost me over $200. At that price, I might as well buy a new ThinkPad instead. However, 120GB SSD were priced under $100, which was reasonable to my thinking.
So, I bought a 120GB Vertex 4 SSD as the replacement drive for my laptop. After doing some research, I decided on this model. This was a 4th generation SSD from Vertex, a reliable brand. It was faster and had a longer life than their older models. Going with the latest SSD made sense to me.
With the new SSD installed and running in my computer, I am very excited at the changes it made. It boots up and runs about 25% faster than my old HDD. It also runs cooler, which is important on laptop computers. Since the SSD is slightly lighter than the HDD it replaced, I have less weight to carry around. Without moving parts, the SDD is more durable than a HDD. The SSD is also quieter than the HDD. Very importantly, I can expect my battery to last longer between charges. To net it all out, I just upgraded my laptop computer for about $100 and ended up with the performance of a similar computer costing $900. That is a great savings in my mind.
How to Upgrade to a SSD
Now, in case I have motivated you to consider upgrading your HDD to a SSD drive in your computer, let me tell you how easy it was to do this, using the right tools. Before starting this process, I decided to upgrade my BIOS to the latest release for my computer. I didn’t want issues with the BIOS and my new SSD hard drive. This was a short process by going to my computer manufacturer’s website and downloading the latest BIOS for my computer model. I carefully followed their instructions to do this and in less than 5 minutes, my computer’s BIOS was up to date.
The next issue I faced was going from a larger (250GB) HDD to a smaller (120GB) SDD. Fortunately, my hard drive was not very full and I had empty space to give up. If the used space on my hard drive was larger than the new SSD drive, I would have had to delete some of the files. That was not the case, so all I was faced with was to reduce the size of the five partitions on my HDD. I used Acronis Disk Director 11 Home to resize each of the partitions on my old HDD. Then I moved each smaller partition towards the beginning of the drive, again using Disk Director. This organized all of my five partitions in the first 120GB of the HDD. The remainder of the HDD was just unallocated space on the drive.
With my old HDD prepared with smaller partitions, I was now ready to copy them to the new SDD. Since most laptops only have room for one hard drive inside the computer, I purchased a special cable to let me attach my new SDD to a USB port on my laptop. This Notebook Drive Upgrade Kit by Apricorn was less than $40 at Best Buy. I attached my new SSD drive to one end of the cable and the other I plugged into a USB port on my laptop. The upgrade kit came with a CD containing software to clone my main drive to the SSD drive, but since I trusted my Acronis True Image 2013 Home backup utility, I used the clone function in True Image to duplicate the contents of my HDD onto the SSD drive. This took about 30 minutes to complete and all went very smoothly.
When the cloning function was completed, I powered off my computer, removed the battery, and then replaced the old HDD inside the laptop with the new SSD I had just finish cloning. When I powered up the computer, it ran without a hitch, only much faster, quieter, and taking less power. This was a very easy enhancement to my ThinkPad and it gave me tremendous improvements to my favorite laptop.
To order Acronis True Image Home 2013 or Acronis Disk Director 11 Home from us, go to www.ugr7.com and select the products you wish to purchase. Once you are on that product’s page, click on the appropriate Buy Now button to place your order. We charge only $25 for a single license or $60 for a three license Family Pack. You can order a download copy or we can mail you a CD with the software on it. (There is a $5 shipping fee per order if you order the CD.) When checking out of the shopping cart, enter in the special order code of UGNL0413.
If you have questions about this article or the True Image or Disk Director products, send an email to support@ugr7.com and I will try to help you with your questions.